Happy birthday to me. 40, so midlife crisis time. No girlfriend, no real job, no direction in life, bad self-image and a tendency to wallow in self-pity.

It's been a rough few months. My father passed away. It was sudden and not painful for him. He'd had a stroke 14 years ago and I'd helped take care of him for all that time. Now I'm adrift personally and professionally. I need to find a new direction in life, which is difficult and scary.

Another year older, but at least no credit card debt!

Anime Expo coming up, then Comic-Con! Hooray!

Had my first ever hard drive death, slowly and painfully going out. I reinstalled the OS repeatedly only to have it fail at the last minute. I ran out and bought an external HD and was able to save all my data, with the computer freezing up and requiring a restart during the transfer more than once. Then off to the shop for most of a week without a computer. Whew.

Went to get my mail from the community mailbox and found a twig had been broken off in the lock to my box... and all the others. I was able to wiggle it out without too much trouble, then spent about 10 minutes taking care of all the others. Hopefully it was punk kids, because they have the excuse of still-forming brains.

Ah, my life overruns with excitement.

A bus driver gave me advice about romance today, out of the blue. He asked if I'd be reading a book on the bus (yes), asked if I had a girlfriend (no), and said I should talk to more people... which is true, I should, but still, kind of out there. Said driver was also overheard saying that he would go over to a female passenger's house and put on some Barry White.

On the flip side, while at the mall that evening, a teenage girl started calling out things to me, like "You've opened my eyes" and "You complete me." I must put out an aura that says "I am amusing to toy with, please try to humiliate me in front of your peers for your amusement" as I get this on a fairly regular basis. I don't make a point of dressing stylishly, just in an average way, so I don't know what causes it.

Happy New Year everyone! Profound, isn't it?

Merry Christmas everyone! It's been a decent season, no depression. More later!

Still lonely and horny. Losing money when the post office regularly steals international packages from my eBay business. Customs forms must be like a shopping list to dishonest employees.

On the plus side, I've finally been able to make Japanese rice balls. Target had a small rice cooker on sale for just $13 and the local pan-Asian supermarket yielded the short grain rice.